The night I proposed to Jackie, I took her to a nice dinner at a resort at Disney World. It was the only night we took without the kids. As such it was the only night we had a drink. At dinner, we had a great waitress.  She was excited to hear that I worked in a church and that we had met at the church. (Yay Holy Cross) That is until I ordered a glass of wine with my dinner. She was shocked.  I had gone against her expectations of a church person.  Her whole attitude toward me changed. She could not believe a Christian, let alone a church worker, would drink.

Living into or up to others’ expectations has been something that I have been doing all my life. My stepdad, Roy, once told a girlfriend: “Dan is the little soldier. He will always do what is expected.”

In some ways I am okay with this. But it can be hard. Everyone has different ideas of how I should behave. The ELCA has a list of expectations, my employees expect me to behave a certain way. The community expects certain behaviors. You get it; lots of different expectations sometimes conflicting with each other.

Often the expectations people have for me come their beliefs of how a pastor should act. My favorite is the cry of “you call yourself a pastor!” Or “what kind of pastor are you?” This usually occurs when I decline to give someone a ride or refuse to give into their request. 

When I first took a job in a church I was presented with lots of expectations. I was at a ball game with some church people. In the middle of the game I made a crack about a person near us. Nothing really bad. But the person I was with gasped. Then she laughed and said oh you are human. Later I was with my youth group when I got angry and jumped on them about their behavior. My now daughter got excited and said see I told you he was normal.

My staff expects me to have certain beliefs and responses to situations that, in many cases I don’t have those beliefs.  Some expect that I would be against LBGTQ+ behavior.  I am not. Some expect me to not tolerate displays of affection. My beliefs are a little more liberal. 

It goes beyond the pastor expectations.

In other cases people expect me to act in certain way because I am a male, a person in authority, a white guy etc…

For example, it is often assumed that when I am helping someone, I must want something from them.  Help a girl I must want sex. Never mind I help everyone. Others expect me to help them, because I helped someone else.  Give out a fan to a family, suddenly everyone wants a fan. Or one of my favorites, I hand out a brown paper bag of diapers and others out front of the center will loudly proclaim I want some. That is until I ask what size diapers they wear.

I bought a new to me car, I must be stealing money from, I am not sure where they think I am stealing from. I recently had someone loudly proclaim that I am getting rich off the natives. Unfortunately, I know a lot of people were hurt by church people. But it sucks to be looked at unfairly because of others behavior.

Others have expectations of me that do not know of. Those are really hard to navigate. Many times, I feel like I am trying to hit a moving target while wearing a blindfold. Some come to see me at the center and leave angry with me before I even talk with them. I had one person angry because I had a staff member follow up with her and her message to call. I had no idea who she was or what she wanted. In those situations, my staff deals with the caller. Her response: “I left a message for Pastor Dan; I expected a call back from him. Not his staff.”

In all sort of situations, I am expected to live into others’ expectations. Neighbors, friends, family, spouse, etc. And usually, I do. Almost always I try to respond the way it is expected. My counselor and I discussed this. It is a learned response. I try to please everyone by doing what they expect out of me. Even when it is killing me inside.

Sometimes living into expectations is okay. Other times I feel like I have to not be true to myself. That I cannot be who I am. My counselor is encouraging me to be me and react the way I want to. It ain’t easy. It is so ingrained in me to do what is expected. I am trying to be me.

God created me to be me. I do not want to be a stumbling block for anyone. But I also need to be true to who God created me to be. I need to find my joy.

God Loves you and so do I.